


The Ghost

by Flames and Fairy Tales (Flames_and_Fairy_Tales)



Series: Let's go, Lucy! [2]
Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Domesticity, Gen, Lucy's first morning at Portland Row, set during TSS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29022459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Fairy_Tales/pseuds/Flames%20and%20Fairy%20Tales
Summary: The first morning Lucy spends at 35 Portland Row is full of surprises.
Relationships: Lucy Carlyle & George Cubbins & Anthony Lockwood
Series: Let's go, Lucy! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103858
Comments: 7
Kudos: 6





	The Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ellajane2255](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellajane2255/gifts).



Lucy woke up to a soft, wet nose nuzzling her cheek. She cracked one eye open to see her eevee looking back at her, her grey fur glinting like silver in the sunlight that filtered through the faded curtains of her new attic room. 

“Morning Vivi,” Lucy mumbled, stiffly sitting up in her new bed. The mattress she slept on was far from new, and the upholstery layer was thinner in places than Lucy preferred. Still, it was leagues ahead of the bed she had in the pension she stayed in the first two weeks after she came down to London. 

Lucy wiped the sleep out of her eyes with one hand, using the other to give Vivi a scratch behind the ear. 

“Haven’t slept this deeply in a long time,” she said out loud when her eye fell on the old alarm clock sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. It showed that it was 8:30, which meant that for the first time in weeks, Lucy had got over ten hours of sleep. There were few nights in which her sleep was uninterrupted, and the spottiness of her rest had started to take a toll on both Lucy and Vivi, who refused to sleep anywhere other than curled up against her trainer. 

The Wythburn mill incident that jumpstarted Lucy’s journey to London hadn’t only opened her eyes to the way Jacob’s treated his agents and their pokemon, it also left her with night terrors more severe than any other work-related nightmare she’d ever had. The screams of her teammates echoed in her head when she closed her eyes. Vivi’s presence at night was a comfort, but it couldn’t drive away the memory of her team’s ghost-touched pokemon, who Lucy couldn’t help as she frantically tried to escape with her own pokemon. 

Sleeping without nightmares, despite being in an unfamiliar house, was a surprise. It was a welcome one though, and from Vivi’s chirpy demeanour that morning, Lucy got the impression the uninterrupted rest had done the pokemon a world of good as well.

Vivi jumped off of the bed and skipped to Lucy’s half unpacked backpack, which lay on the chair next to the door. Lucy was too tired to find a proper place for it in the tiny room the previous night, and now that she got a better look around the room, she wasn’t sure she had a better place for it. Maybe under the bed. Vivi gave a little yip, pulling at the strap of the backpack. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll brush you,” Lucy promised, covering the distance from the bed to the chair in three strides. She changed into leggings, a skirt, and a soft jumper, and grabbed the brush from the section of her backpack she reserved for Vivi’s things.

Finding no other place to sit comfortably, Lucy settled back down on the bed. She patted the spot next to her for Vivi to jump up and started to run the soft brush through Vivi’s fluffy collar. The brush went through the thick fur without issue, but Lucy took her time. These morning sessions were more about having a little bonding moment before starting the day than actual necessary grooming.

Lucy’s own hair was a different story, though. After swapping the pokemon brush for her own, Lucy took a moment to tidy up her hair. “What do you think Vivi, decent?” She ignored her Pokemon’s dubious look, she offered her arm for her to climb up to her shoulder, and left the attic. 

It felt a bit odd, having a room entirely to herself. An entire floor even, as her new bedroom and the tiny bathroom adjacent to it were the only rooms in the tiny attic. Lucy was used to living in a full house. Even after most of her sisters had moved out, the cottage always seemed crowded. Between Mary, her mother, and their three pokemon, it was nearly impossible to take three steps without bumping into someone. Despite the house on Portland Row having the same number of inhabitants as her old home in the north, its massive size made it feel quiet, and Lucy enjoyed the tranquillity as she made her way down the stairs. 

Lucy took her time while walking to the staircase on the first floor. She had studied the curiosities on the walls of the first floor landing for a moment last night, before her discussion with George about Lockwood’s parents, but the items caught her attention again. More fossils, the Polynesian ghost chaser Lockwood had explained the day before, and three beautiful fans. They were made from beautiful long feathers in red, purple, and pink. The red feathers were tipped with black, and Lucy realised they had probably belonged to a tropical bird pokemon she vaguely remembered reading about. From what she recalled, Oricorio had four forms with different typing, not three. It made her wonder if there was another yellow fan somewhere in the house, or if the three fans were from an incomplete set. 

Vivi grew impatient with Lucy’s dawdling and nuzzled her cheek to get her attention back to the presence. 

“Right,” Lucy muttered, reaching up to scratch Vivi’s chin, “you’re right, we should go down to eat.” 

Lockwood and George were already at the breakfast table when Lucy entered the kitchen. Lockwood’s meowth slunk out when Lucy opened the door, while George’s rowlet was perched on the back of his chair. Vivi jumped off of Lucy’s shoulder without paying the other pokemon any attention and bounced her way to the two bowls in the corner. 

“Morning,” Lucy greeted the two boys as she made her way to the cupboard with pokemon food. She pulled out the food for Vivi and filled her bowl, setting it out for her pokemon before turning back to fix her own breakfast.

“Good morning. There’s sliced bread in the cupboard if you want to make toast, and the kettle is already on for the next round of tea,” Lockwood told her from behind his newspaper.

“Oh, thanks.” 

Even in her new environment, Lucy found comfort in the familiar motions of preparing breakfast for herself. She popped two slices of bread into the toaster, opened two cupboards before she found the one that housed the plates, and grabbed a slightly bruised apple from the fruit bowl tucked away in the corner of the counter. 

Lucy bit into the apple as she set down the plate and took a seat across from George. She looked down at the white cloth Lockwood had dubbed the ‘thinking cloth’ during her house tour. At that first glance, she found a shopping list, a note from ‘G’ saying he went out for groceries, a poffin recipe, and a few drawings her mother would have whacked her over the head for if she had found Lucy making them. The childishness of it drew a small smile from her. Despite the two other teens at the table working together to run the Lockwood and co agency, they weren’t all that mature yet either. 

Lucy ate her apple in comfortable silence. She wasn’t much of a morning person herself either, so she didn’t mind the lack of conversation. Vivi lay down at her feet after finishing her kibble, and she reached down to give her a quick pet. 

George got up to prepare tea when the kettle whistled. 

“How do you drink yours, Carlyle?” He asked without looking back at her. 

“Just a splash of milk, please” Lucy answered. It was hard not to be annoyed at his direct manners, but she vowed to be on her best behaviour during her probationary period at the agency. 

Half a minute later George set down a steaming cup of tea next to Lucy’s plate. He gave his rowlet a scratch and turned to the countertop to wash his plate. Lucy was about to reach for her tea when the two slices of bread popped up out of the toaster. 

After spreading marmalade on her toast and taking a bite, Lucy reached for her cup. She didn’t pay much attention to the porcelain, instead scanning more of the thinking cloth for more little drawings or funny notes. 

Because of this, she started so badly she almost dumped the contents of her cup over her lap when George called out. 

“Don’t drink that!” 

Lucy was about to snap at him when the cup in her hand gave a jiggle. She let go with a yelp, but instead of crashing to the table and shattering into little porcelain shards, the little cup floated up to her, slowly twirling around to reveal white eyes on the other side. Feeling her trainer’s surprise, Vivi jumped into Lucy’s lap, the hair on her back standing on end.

“What- What is…” Lucy was unable to form a coherent sentence as she watched the little tea cup float in front of her, swirling around the purple substance inside, which most definitely was not her morning brew. The purple handle she had grabbed without looking came loose from the bottom of the cup and gave a little wave. 

“It’s a pokemon?” Lucy managed after a moment. 

“Yes it is, Miss Carlyle.” Lockwood had lowered the newspaper, and met her gaze with a look in his eyes that Lucy couldn’t quite place. 

“A sinistea. My second pokemon. I’m sorry you met it this way, but I ensure you it means you no harm.” 

He emphasised the last words in a way that made Lucy think he had said them many times before. It was to be expected, Sinistea was a ghost-type pokemon. The types for pokemon had been named long before the Problem started, and actual ghosts appeared in England. Ghost-type pokemon weren’t actually ghosts in the way Visitors were, but with all the tales of lost children turning into phantumps in the woods, and their incorporeal abilities, the link between them had been made fast. 

Ghost type trainers immediately got side-eyed by the public, but would probably have been able to rehabilitate the public image of their pokemon, had it not been for the peculiar behaviour their wild counterparts started displaying. 

While a lot was uncertain in those first days of the Problem, when Rotwell and Fittes first started their agencies and public panic was high, it was immediately noticeable that whenever there was a haunting, there was a large chance that the location would contain a nest or two of ghost-types. Something about the spectral energy of Visitors acted like a lighthouse for them, drawing gastly, lampets, drifloons and others to it like lost ships at open sea. 

Aware that Lockwood and George were watching her reaction closely, Lucy held up her palm. The small cup pokemon seemed to hesitate for a moment, twisting around to give Lockwood a questioning look, but landed in her hand after Lockwood gave it an encouraging nod. 

“Nice to meet you, sinistea,” Lucy said awkwardly, “or wait, does it have a name?” 

“Not really,” Lockwood answered at the same time that George said, “I’ve been trying to convince Lockwood to call it Earl.” 

“I’m not naming my pokemon after a tea flavour, George,” Lockwood protested. 

“Why not? You still haven't named it, and Earl is fitting! It’s not like your naming skills are any better. Once he evolves, Percy the meowth will be Percy the persian.”

While the two boys bickered over pokemon's names, Lucy lowered her hand to let Vivi sniff the unnamed sinistea. Its scent seemed to confuse her, but since the tiny pokemon clearly wasn’t hostile, Vivi relaxed. Sinistea reached out with its small purple hand and patted her on the nose, making her sneeze. 

Lucy smiled and placed sinistea back on the table, far from her own cup of tea so she wouldn’t repeat her earlier mistake. It seemed that 35 Portland Row was full of surprises, but she got the feeling she would enjoy her time here.

**Author's Note:**

> The second instalment of this series! I hope you enjoyed reading, let me know what you think!


End file.
